Oh, I'm so jealous of your grosbeaks and redpolls, Pudge! I think my neighbor is feeding too well, because the grosbeaks are always hanging around there and I'm lucky if they pop by for a brief visit. I did get some Evening Grosbeaks in for a good feed this spring and again this fall. That was a thrill to spot them, as I hadn't seen them before. I haven't seen a redpoll for about 3 years now. I find them so cute. The last time I saw a flock of them was early in the spring/late winter. Do they stay around all winter? Someone told me once that they cycle...and I don't remember why...was it their migration pattern maybe? I'd be interested to know if someone had any thoughts on that. I also had my first White Breasted Nuthatch yesterday! Another cutie and fun to watch...very vocal. He was still here this evening. RE: salt and birds...I'm thinking they probably require certain amounts naturally and find it somewhere, but with bird feeder fast-food that contains salt, they might eat alot of it because its easy to get and therefore get too much salt. Sound familiar? ie. potato chips! Gil, I wonder if the nuthatches would like your suet bars? Toots

Here it is one year later and the 2 Bluebird's I have planted have done well over the winter and early spring. I had minimal pruning of dead stems out of each of them. I waited till they leafed out before doing any pruning to see what was dead and what was alive. Both plants had numerous blooms on them as compared to last year's handful on each plant. The blooms opened to blue blossoms and with the unexpected heat I expected them to be flagging (wilting of leaves) but the symptoms were minimal to the one with more PM sun. A bucket of water helped it recover. E mail me for pictures if interested. Add @AOL.com to the user name please.

"Oh its not the t-stat now is it?" I don't know Jeff. ".. sounds like a lockout to me." A lockout needs a hard reset. Once a primary trips - it won't reset simply by cycling the breaker. You have to re-arm the primary manually. "or a number of things that can't be checked over the internet" True, Jeff but diagnosing a lockout over the internet is no more sure than diagnosing a t-stat over the internet. Jeff - no slams here; just diagnosing what we've been told. Cheese- All the stat does is make and break a low-voltage connection. Essentially it's a part of a relay circuit. It opens and closes what is usually a 24v circuit, that's all it does. The stat gets it's working power from the batteries. If the batts are weak; the stat won't reliably close the connection. IOW it isn't always telling the furnace "it's cold, make heat." Jeff wasn't wrong-I just don't believe that a diagnosing a bad t-stat is over your head, 24 volts will not hurt you like 120v or 240v. If you lose power in your display - it's not the 24v from the furnace. It's the stats internal battery power failing - or some other element of the stat failing ie. bad component on the board, or bad contact on the board etc. Are your batteries new? -br

Hi Folks! Everyone here has been very helpful, and I wanted to update you all on our present situation. My SD was getting so extremely angry at both me and her mother, that we did set up counseling for SD (14 1/2 yrs old) and, seperately for just my wife and me. The counselor for SD is a female who specializes in working with teen girls, and is uniquely set up to work with SD after some initial input from her mother to get things started. So far, SD has not opened up much to the counselor, and feels that she does not have any problems. SD's counselor says that it takes a while for teens to open up and they are making very slow progress. Frankly, I do not see any benefit yet, however it is probably to early anyway. My wife and I have also started working with a seperate therapist to help us as a couple (and parents) learn, grow, and make changes to help strengthen our marriage. After a number of meetings the therapist (who is very good in my opinion), has confirmed that I must, as the Step-parent, move out of the authoritarian role, and operate at most as a partner and support person to SD's mother. Problem is ( and has always been), SD's mother just does not want to be the authority person, she can't tolerate this role, and as a result I was constantly being pushed by BioMom into the lead authority role. Therefore, a lot of the therapy work right now is with BioMom to help her get stronger to take the lead parenting authority role, with my support of course. Funny thing is, I had been asking for this change for years, and sometimes it takes an outside person to make the observations stick. Our current problem, and one I would really appreciate some thoughts from you folks on, is the that SD is focusing most all of her anger and resentment onto me. I have always been loving, diplomatic, and kind to her (while doing everything a full time father does for a daughter). However, I was usually the one who would pay attention to what she was doing and sometimes catching her breaking major rules. Then I would be pushed by BioMom into taking the lead role in dicipline. This did not happen often, as she is a pretty good kid, up until this last 1 1/2 years. Recall that absentee BioFather is way down in Florida and her "kid-buddy" right now, offering her just fun, gifts, and good times (as well as trying to get her to move in with him and girlfriend). Question/concern is; how do I handle the anger and resentment that is coming my way so often. SD is telling her BioFather she "hates" "can't stand" me etc. and is keeping this same line with her friends as best we can tell. SD says that "I am ruining her life." Nothing could be farther from the truth, however SD is now taken to this attitude. I am sure that BioFather is encouraging this. How do you all suggest that I might turn this situation around? Is this mainly due to the "target" that all step-parents are at this age, and the fact that I was the occasional authoritarian? When do you think she might get past this stage? For my part, I am no longer in the authoritarian role, BioMom is and has told SD this. I am just continuing to be there for SD, concentrating on the positives between us, and leaving her alone when she won't speak to me. Anything more I might do?? I knew that my wife and I had our roles reversed, and now we are fixing that, however to an extent the damage has been done with SD's perception of me. I would like to hope that SD and I can regain the wonderful relationship we had from SD's age of 5 through 12, when it then all suddenly changed so much. Any encouragement, experience, or insight would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you all very much!